Held at the Michelin Star Gala in the Ciutat de Les Arts i Les Ciències, this year the province adds four new stars and loses three, arriving to a total of eight restaurants.
The province of Valencia will view the announcement of the Michelin Guide 2022 with mixed feelings. On the one hand, many will rejoice at the addition of up to four new stars, three in the city of Valencia, some of which have been in great demand for years by food lovers in the region.
However, three restaurants have lost their stars: Sents in the town of Ontinyent and Sucede in the capital due to closure, and Casa Manolo in Daimús due to a decision by the inspectors.
Valencia has eight starred restaurants: two two-starred and six more with a glow. Let’s take a look at which outstanding establishments have made the list, and which ones have maintained their stars:
1. El Poblet – Valencia
El Poblet embodies the Michelin star dining experience that Quique Dacosta is known for in Valencia. On Calle Correos, 8, the haute cuisine food in El Poblet is what skyrocketed the chef to fame throughout the country.
Now managed by Luis Valls, El Poblet focuses on an innovative and local-market-based menu. Under the guiding influence of its mother restaurant, Quique Dacosta in Denia, the restaurant achieved its Michelin star in 2013.
Valls worked arm in arm with Dacosta in his Denia restaurant for almost four years, which proves to be true in the cuisine of El Poblet, which after 5 years, is already a mixture of the best combinations of the two powerhouses. Prices can range from €85 – €125 per person depending on the courses.
El Poblet won its first star in 2013 under the leadership of Germán Carrizo and Carito Lourenço, now at the also starred restaurant Fierro, and in 2019 they earned their second star with Valls in the kitchen and with a view to the 2020 edition of the guide.
The restaurant serves market and local cuisine, making it, along with Ricard Camarena, the only two-starred restaurant in the city. This year, it’s maintained both stars.
2. Ricard Camarena – Valencia
Located in the Bombas Gens space, Ricard Camarena has become a mecca for gourmet lovers. The whole gastronomic concept revolves around the Mediterranean and local flavours, which was well worth winning its two stars in 2012 and in 2018, when it also received the National Gastronomy Award for Best Head Chef, under the direction of Barx.
It sources the majority of their products from a local garden. As they’re in direct contact with the grower. This creates a working synergy based on shared decisions at each crucial moment in the life of the product: planting, growing and harvesting, thus establishing a sustainable relationship between the restaurant, the producer and the land. This year it maintained its star at the gala.
The restaurant will close on weekends for the new 2022 season.
3. Kaido Sushi Bar – Valencia
Ulises Menezo and Yoshikazu Yanome are the masterminds behind the scenes at Kaido Sushi Bar, which is the only Michelin-starred Japanese restaurant in the whole Valencian community. Kaido is a small, intimate, and exclusive restaurant for only 10 diners where Japanese haute cuisine is served using the best Mediterranean produce. Winning its first star this year, they boast the finest sushi on offer in Valencia.
Chef Yanome is Japanese by birth and a chef qualified by the AJSA (All Japan Sushi Association), and he has a decade of experience working in Japan and has won the award for the best sushi chef in Spain.
4. Lienzo – Valencia
María José Martínez’s name was also heard loud and clear at the gala held on the 14th December when she won the first Michelin star for the restaurant Lienzo.
Paying homage to the sea, Lienzo is best described as the trendy Michelin-starred restaurant in Valencia with transgressive, avant-garde and affordable cuisine.
A restaurant in a former art gallery that maintains its spirit, has temporary exhibitions and offers a product and seasonal cuisine that is a work of art with creative and avant-garde recipes and dishes that are transgressive, very rich and visually full of colour.
Regarded as the Michelin-starred restaurant in Valencia that you can afford, Lienzo occupies a premises that was once an art gallery and they wanted to maintain this spirit because after all, the cuisine is also art and they wanted to connect the past and the history of the place with the present.
In fact, it’s not just a restaurant, it also serves a temporary exhibition hall with works by prominent local painters.
5. La Salita – Valencia
Begoña Rodrigo’s restaurant has reaffirmed its shine in its spectacular location in Valencia’s Ruzafa neighbourhood thanks to its firm commitment to mainly vegetable and seafood cuisine.
The project aspires to more similar distinctions as it has it all: excellent product, outstanding technique, unique presentations and a team that is greased to perfection. In the new season, as in the case of Ricard Camerena, they will be open only from Monday to Friday to give the staff a rest.
Occupying a building in the city’s Ruzafa district, La Salita stands out for its varying dining options on the ground floor and the restaurant upstairs.
6. Arrels – Sagunto
The young chef Vicky Sevilla’s Arrels restaurant, located in the historic centre of the town of Sagunto, in the former stables of the Palace of the Dukes of Gaeta, has been awarded its third star in the province of Valencia.
Vicky performs the impressive feat of becoming the youngest chef to receive the distinction at the age of 29. Her love affair with cooking began by chance, but it ended up becoming an integral part of her life.
After training and working in the kitchens of such renowned Valencian chefs as Begoña Rodrigo, Vicente Patiño and Susi Díaz, she opened her restaurant with great effort, which now, four years later, has allowed her to join the select club of Spanish starred chefs.
7. Riff – Valencia
The Riff restaurant run by the German-born chef Bernd H. Knöller is more than established in the gastronomic offer of the city of Valencia with its Mediterranean cuisine based on seasonal products of the highest quality, many of which feature vegetables and greens. The commitment of his menus to ecological sustainability is more than palpable, a work that earned him his star in 2010.
An interesting aspect to highlight is that the chef himself walks around the various tables and serves some dishes to make his presence felt and show that he does work every day in the restaurant (unlike other great chefs). When you pay for a menu of this calibre, the chef who created the menu should at least be there making the dishes you are going to taste.
8. Fierro – Valencia
Under the management of couple Germán and Carito, they honed their skills and experience at Vuelve Carolina and El Poblet, working under the direction of Quique Dacosta, to then make Mediterranean cuisine their own and reinterpret it in a personal way with their unmistakable Argentinian stamp and all their culinary baggage.
Located in the Ruzafa neighbourhood, Fierro takes the Mediterranean as its central theme. The team works with local produce and the tradition of everyday flavours from a personal perspective, where flavour gives free rein to creativity.
